An Open Letter To My Anxiety

Before I start this I just have to say that I was inspired to write this by swiftiewithfragilex who is an amazing blogger as well as an incredible Youtuber. She has not only given me lots of inspiration but has become a great friend too. I would highly recommend anyone reading this to take the “Open Letter Challenge.”

Dear Anxiety,

I guess I’ve always been a little paranoid and I’ve always had the tendency to overthink everything and I can’t say that your appearance in my life is completely unexpected. I don’t know why I’m like this- maybe it’s the way I was raised or maybe I’m just genetically predispositioned to be an anxious person. Honestly, it could easily be either.

You joined me soon after your co-worker depression decided to leave. All my life I’ve felt as if I need to be cautious, as though I should always expect impending doom and once you joined me it only got worse. I stopped being myself. I felt as if my life, my mind, my personality was slowly deteriorating and I could do nothing to stop it.

The light headedness, the nausea, the headaches, the random panic and the social phobia were beginning to pull me under. With depression it felt like I was at the bottom of an ocean with a rock tied to my foot but with anxiety it was more like someone just threw me into the water and no matter how hard I tried to swim, to get back up I just kept going further and further down. I was drowning in my own panic and paranoia. I felt permanently exhausted both physically and psychologically as though I had no strength left. It takes more strength than most people realise to be panicked and uncomfortable all the time.

But the truth is that I have learnt to live with anxiety. I have learnt to live with the irrational thoughts, the feeling of fear and impending doom, the occasional lightheadedness and panic attacks, the cold sweats and nausea.

The only thing I have left to say is that I thought anxiety would ruin my life but it only made me stronger, braver, more determined to do as I choose without constantly worrying what the aftermath would be. As long as it keeps pushing me up I’m going to keep swimming upwards trying to break free. It no longer controls me, I control it.

***

If you or anyone you know is suffering from anxiety or any mental disorder please seek help . It is important that you make sure your mental health doesn’t bring you down and there are lots of people out there that offer help. Mental illness often also effects those around us and a lot of times couples counselling can help your significant other understand what you are going through better.

Thanks for reading this and if you enjoyed it please give it a like, follow, share and comment.

I have long battled anxiety and swung from emotions like the ones you describe. Now, with a little bit of time under my belt, though, I too feel like anxiety made me stronger. Learning how to harness it and use it to work hard to overcome the individual thing causing it sure wasn’t easy. I appreciate your bravery and look forward to reading more of your adventures as you keep swimming!

I have a weird and anxious mentality in which I worry about everything. If I hear something about pollution killing the world, I instantly start to panic and freak out about how we’ll all be dead in the next decade. I hear about virtual reality and I start to worry that in 10 years everyone will be using it. I worry all the time about if I die or if I will not be able to publish a book. I worryworryworry all the time. It’s horrible. (Sometimes I feel normal if I make myself focus and ignore)

Yes I do the exact same thing. If I read about a disease or something I start worrying I’m going to get it. I just freak my self out over everything. But these days what really helps me with that is when I start having these thoughts I just totally distract myself and do something else until I feel more calm. Yoga, meditation, art and writing really helps 🙂

It’s ok. You’re not alone! I do exactly the same, but we can manage all this! We CAN! Everything is so surreal and unreasonable, but that shows us that most of the problems are just built up or exegerrated in our heads and totally irrational.

Great post. I too suffer from some anxiety issues, mostly relating to work and home. I’m trying to learn to deal with it, as it does get disruptive at times, causing more problems than I’d like to have. I have tried meditation, but it seems Writing fiction is about the only thing that helps to escape from those kinds of anxious feelings. Thanks for sharing this. 🙂

Thank you so much! Yeah anxiety can really effect your day to day life if you don’t get it under control. Unfortunately meditation doesn’t always work on everyone but it’s great that you’ve found writing which is a great way to distract yourself and calm down. 🙂

Yeah I think with meditation I just have a hard time stopping my mind. I can’t stay focused enough to clear my head. But when I write it seems I’m in control of what’s in my mind, if that makes sense 😉

I find that with anxiety — when you pull yourself out of the cycle and look at it for what it it, it does make you much stronger, especially when you have to face the actual, rational things that make you anxious.

Wonderful. As a fellow friend with anxiety, this is right on with my story, too. It’s a struggle, and I’m proud of you for the steps you’ve taken to control and live with anxiety. Standing strong with you, sister!

Thank you so much. Your comment means a lot to me. Honestly I’m just trying to be as honest as I can be because people just treat mental illnesses so differently then compared to physical illnesses and I want people who have a mental illness to know that they are not alone and that it does get better. 🙂

You’re welcome! 🙂 The stigma – whether from others or ourselves – can make it hard for those with a mental illness to seek help and find treatment. But when those who have or had a mental illness share their stories, it makes a very helpful difference to people going through similar experiences.

Anxiety, constant anxiety is a terrible to have to live with, but at least you know what it is and are prospering despite it. Some aren’t even aware they suffer from anxiety and it drags them under over sober again.

Everyone has a miserable git of a side of themselves who constantly nags in their ear that they are not good enough, can’t do this and can’t do that.
Here’s what to do:
Take out the nuclear device of your contempt and nuke it out of existence.
You are brill and the world is yours. There is nothing you can’t try. You might fail but so what. That simply means that you have to try it again and do it better!

Thank you so much for that Opher! So nice to hear from you again by the way!
Yeah I think we’re all pretty self destructive at times and honestly these days I’ve just learnt to ignore my anxiety and do what I want to anyway because if I don’t I’m only going to end up regretting it.

I’m both depressed and anxious. But I’m often anxious about things most people aren’t, like instead of being anxious about dying in a car accident, I’ll be anxious about the little accidents that could happen that may lead to my worst nightmare….social interaction with a stranger. “I’m sorry I scraped your car. Can we sort insurance details out? Oh, also I have no idea how this shit works, hold me? No, that’s too intimate for this situation, I apologise for asking you to hold me. I don’t even like being held. So let’s get back to that moment I scraped your car…..”

I was depressed before I got anxiety and sometimes (maybe due to the anxiety) I feel really depressed again. Yeah I often have a really hard time conversing with strangers and most of the time before I have to go out to like a function or a party I start to freak out way beforehand and I just over analyse everything that could go wrong and I just freak out. I guess distracting myself helps the most in these situations. I hope you can find a way to cope with both your depression and anxiety, I know how horrible they both are and can imagine what you’re going through.

Just while I myself am in the phase to battle felling depressed and demotivated, I read your post and I have to admit that it does inspire me and make me feel better knowing that it is pretty common given the kind of circumstances we all are swimming in. Thank you for writing this great post. Re-blogged it on https://mindeology.com

Thank you so much for your support and reblogging it. Statistically most people do at some point of their life go through depression and I think it’s always nice when people share their stories and it feels like we’re not so alone anymore. I’m really glad this post made you feel better because I’ve been there and I know that when you’re depressed there’s not many things that lift you up. I hope you feel better soon 🙂

I like the part when you said anxiety made you actually stronger. We should not look at us as victims, but more as privileged people who can experience all this and then use it to become more special and even stronger personalities.

Yes exactly! At first I was so mad about having anxiety and I always thought “why me?” but now I feel like even though anxiety is definitely a pain at least I have had so many experiences because of it. It made me so much stronger and more independent too. And now I understand mental disorders so much better.

Yes we need to be more open about mental health issues because they are nothing to be ashamed of at all. I know it can be really tough living with anxiety but you just have to try to stay as positive as possible and try to get it under control.

Thank you for the post. Just recently I’ve been browsing to read other people’s experiences with anxiety. After a pretty bad one this morning with the pressure on my chest overwhelming and tearing up talking to my daughter I used a meditation app, which did help calm me down. I feel for those that suffer, it can be such a helpless feeling and I have spent many days just getting back in bed because I didn’t have the energy to fight it. It’s not that bad all the time fortunately but I do spend way too much time worrying about things. Even things that haven’t happened or the made up situations that I dwell on. I’ve learned who I can and can not tell about this, some people just think you’re weak or crazy and don’t understand why you just can’t ‘get over it’. It may be a part of my life always but I am determined to not let it control me. I know there may be times it does but I can’t go on without giving it a fight. Thank you so much for your post.

Yeah anxiety seems very common these days. I don’t know if it’s our lifestyle or just that people are more aware of it now. Meditation really helps me a lot with my anxiety too and I have an app that I use as well and I meditate about three times a day for a total of an hour.
A lot of people don’t really understand the difference between being anxious and having an anxiety disorder and they think that it’s easy to just ignore it or get over it. Having anxiety has made me more aware how ignorant people are when it comes to mental illnesses.
Yes you can absolutely fight it. We just need to understand how irrational certain thoughts and emotions are and try to ignore them. It’s not an easy thing to do but with practice I think you can definitely live with anxiety and not let it bother you too much.
You’re welcome- I am just trying to spread awareness about anxiety and I am glad you enjoyed the post and shared your thoughts 🙂

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